Whenever someone like that -- triumphs of mediocrity -- make it to the superstar ranks, I have to suspect that their success was engineered by nefarious forces. How else do you explain Madonna? Or (c)rap in general?

To give Seagal his due, his Aikido skills are reputed to be some of the best in the world. But what he's doing in his movies isn't Aikido; it's stunt work. If he'd stick to that, he'd probably be okay. But noooooooo, he has to try to make "message" movies, where the "plot" actually tries to do more than string together one fight scene after another. And it's there that he falls flat.

Seagal is a beer-besotted lout best remembered for a first round TKO of his estranged wife, Kelly "Don't Hate Me Because I'm beautiful" LeBrock. He's a patent fraud with his little-girl's voice and beer gut. At Terminal Island, he'd be ridden more often on the shower room floor than Secretariat.

I'm just saying that there's a difference between using Aikido techniques on a sound stage to make a character look tough, and using Aikido in a street fight or a tournament to overthrow an opponent. In the latter, there are no rehearsals or retakes. And the opponents aren't union stuntmen trained to pull punches so the "star" looks good.

I'm just saying that there's a difference between using Aikido techniques on a sound stage to make a character look tough, and using Aikido in a street fight or a tournament to overthrow an opponent. In the latter, there are no rehearsals or retakes. And the opponents aren't union stuntmen trained to pull punches so the "star" looks good.

Amen! Not to mention that in real life when your enemies know you are good with your hands, they just snipe you from 100 yards away in the bushes and you never see it coming.

What happens over a period of time is that the Karate stles begin to merge in the higher belts. When the Japanese conquered Okinawa they forbid the Okinawan to have weapons lest they revolt. The Okinawans learned to use agricultural implements as weapons. The Nunchaku actually began as implements for husking grain. They've become specifically designed for martial use and have spread throughout the martial arts world. The same with the scei, the butterfly knife, the kendo pole and whatever. Hence, Bruce Lee became an expert in nunchucks and you can see the Okinawan influence in Seagal's use of long knives and certain hand movements.

My own instructor, Soo Young Cha, was Korean. In the early '50s he and General Choi set out on a program to train and toughen up the Korean Army. Eventually, every Korean army officer was to be required to have a black belt. They devised a new system of martial arts. They began with Sho Shin Do which was an older form of Korean Karate. Cha went throughout Asia to study with the great masters, including Oyama of Japan. He brought back the best from various places then he and General Choi created Tae Kwan Do. At that point in one year Mr. Cha won the Korean, Taiwan, Tokyo, Okinawan, and a few other places Karate championships, becoming all-Asian champion. What you obtain at top levels is a synthesis in the best people.

Cha had his opinions. He discouraged study of areas such as nunchucks in his students, saying if your Tae Kwan Do was good, you didn't need such trivial items. That's easy to say when you are an 8th or 9th degree black belt.

In Korea he once had three guys attack him with guns in an attempt to kill him. Before thay could pull the triggers he disarmed them and knocked them on their asses.

He was know for his air break. You could throw concrete blocks in the air and he would shatter them with a judo chop. The means concrete, not porous cinder block. When it was captured on film it looked like they were being hit with a 30-06. He'd do the same with regular small ceramic building block. I had a picture of him shattering stacks of concrete and thick roofing tiles with his head. It looked like the stuff was being hit by a cannon.

But we all age. For a while during the 80s he was afflected with a severe kidney ailment. There is no way he could do what he once did. Neither can Steven Seagal. He will find that out.

I didn't know about those two fighters you mention. Seagal hasn't been tested in a full contact ring, with rules, or a bar fight with the best bar fighters. We only know that he's good, not that he's the best.

Here's the deal on Seagal. He got started making pictures with a pharmacist turned producer from Brooklyn/Staten Island. This guy, Julius Nasso, is connected up to his chin.
The $$$ they got started with came from guess who? When SS got too big for the relationship and struck out without JN the bent nose boys imposed a tax of $150k per picture. The FEDS called it extortion and JN is awaiting trial. SS learned the hard way who's really tough.

Seagal hasn't been tested that we know about, but I'll bet he's had some dust-ups. I'd say he can handle himself. Think he had to prove himself a couple of times in Japan?

Dan Inosanto is a master of Filipino Kali. It's a great martial art. It's the martial art I'd pick for the United States, if I had to pick just one.

It's very weapons oriented. Other martial arts introduce you to weapons after you've been studying for 2 years and have attained a black belt. Kali starts you right off with rattan sticks, then machetes and other edged weapons almost overnight.

Everyone (conservative) in America should know how to pick up a stick and wale on (a liberal) an attacker or intruder. It's good cardiovascular exercise, too.

It has its share of empty handed techniques, kicks, take-downs, choke-holds and submissions, too.

That stick fight they had in that bar is a basic Siniwali drill that you'll see entire classes practicing just as fast and flashy as that anywhere they teach Kali.

In a real fight you'd be trying to hit your opponent's hands and the rest of his body as opposed to the stick being the primary target.

It's typical for wannabees to say something like "I used to train with SEALs (or Delta or whoever) which may striclty be true, on a one day demonstration, or with the SEALs who were extras on a movie etc.

Then they take that to "I used to be with the SEALs", which later is recalled as "he was a SEAL."

I think that I don't entirely agree about the merging of styles at the top, and I believe Aikido is superior because it does not depend on kicking 6 feet high, or being able to smash concrete.

Those type skills require a certain youth, and constant training, while the relaxed and reactive circular parrying and locking and throwing styles like Aikido are effective years after training, even when older. They become relexive, so that an unexpected attack (a sucker punch) is dealt with from deep instinctive memory without warming up, stretching, getting into a stance and so on.

Plus, against mulitple opponents, Aikido is much less energy draining. High output styles like TKD leave one quickly exhausted when facing multiple opponents who are cagey in their attacks.

Didn't Seagal's ex-wife Kelly LeBrock of the movie "Weird Science" divorce him because he used her as a punching bag? I always wondered what his voice was like if he would drop the "whisper" level. In one of his movies (can't remember which one), only for a couple of syllables did he drop it and his voice sounded so like Michael Jackson high pitch that I ended up laughing so that I couldn't take the movie seriously after that.

Not to mention that the kicks are only effective at the optimal turning radius or distance. I've been studying about 5 years, first in tkd and gracie jujitsu, more recently in tai chi.

Tai chi and akido are both "internal;"they train timing and balance over strength and technique. It takes much longer to learn these techniques, but they can be assimilated into harder styles. Young students should probably learn basic self defense first anyway; scars and krav maga are both effective distillations.

Why do I like internal arts? They teach you to keep your head. Many assaults, or invasions, are not physical;it's usually about someone crowding you out or trying to intimidate. I think the internal arts sensitize a person ,psychologically as well as physically, to both kinds of insult. One last thing: these arts are more "literate;" they've been around longer and have been extensively documented. That sort of thing becomes important once you round 40 and your knees start to creak.

Those type skills require a certain youth, and constant training, while the relaxed and reactive circular parrying and locking and throwing styles like Aikido are effective years after training, even when older. They become relexive, so that an unexpected attack (a sucker punch) is dealt with from deep instinctive memory without warming up, stretching, getting into a stance and so on.

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I'll offer a bot of advice from someone who has been places he wishs he never been and seen things he wishes he never seen. There have been times I've wondered if I'm fit to associate with decent people because of it.

The business of a 98 pound weakling defeating a 200 pound man by using his own strength against him with Asian arts is a myth that will get you killed in a serious situation. If you are going to get in a tussle with the big boys, particularly if the have knives, clubs, or whatever, you need to be able to move fast and deliver a single incapacitating blow. That takes STRENGTH and training. I know how to break a person's spine, neck, or arm if he grabs me. I know a few nerve holds. None of these are generally known to the average person. The moves are not particularly taxing. They require speed. They require more force than you might expect. Those two factors are the result of power training. There's no substitute for it.

I am a fan of martial arts movies, mostly from hong kong.
As far as the real deal goes i know Jet Li in his younger days did well in competition matches. I think he would get more respect in his movies if he kept away from the wire work. Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao were never trained from what i remember.

The best martial art movie i have seen would be The Prodigal Son with sammo hung, yuen biao and Lam Ching Ying. Some great
fights, with none of the wire work. Great stuff.

Not much to say about Segal, i HATE crap, overedited american martial arts movies. I hold his movies in the same regard as the Karate Kid.

Eyes, nose, throat, balls and then ears. You don't have to kill someone to incapacitate them, control them or escape.

You don't have to be Bruce Lee to poke someone in the eye or smash them in the nose.

Learn to handle a stick and then carry a cane.

The few people that can defend against a barrage of 3 to 5 verticle 'florettas' (flowers) delivered with a cane or rattan stick wouldn't be attacking you anyway.

Anyone can learn to swing a cane in a small back-handed, verticle, circular motion stopping their arm motion with the palm of their opposite hand at base of the biceps and elbow joint on the inside of the upper arm.

Anyone can learn to fire three rapid fire swings in a single second.

Anyone has the endurance to keep firing for 10 to 15 seconds while moving forward, backward or to either side. Any part of the body struck by the tip or any part of the last 3rd of the stick or cane, that's traveling the circumference of a circle 12 to 18 feet in diameter in a 3rd of a second, really hurts like hell.

With a little practice if you put a small strip of reflective tape on the tip of your stick, all your attacker will see is a blur of color.

Mix your strikes up with figure 8's and 'abanicos' (fan strikes) and you're bound to hit something that's going to take a long time to heal.

I am a fan of martial art movies and enjoyed Seagal's early movies - Above the Law, Hard to Kill, Out for Justice, Marked for Death, and the two Under Siege movies. He does appear to have let himself go and I believe Jet Li could give him a serious (series) run for his money.

But something about this story doesn't ring right with me. It is public knowledge that Seagal was originally backed financially by Nasso as evidenced by the $60 million lawsuit against the actor. Even the $150,000 per film "tax" extortion ploy has been exposed. A Google search provides hundreds of hits on this mob connection. So what does Seagal have to gain by intimidating another reporter who may write about the scandal?

IMO, the Gotti's are trying to portray the portly actor in a bad light before the upcoming extortion trial. Pellicano is not an honorable man (hence the association with Clinton) and would easily serve two masters. I think Gotti/Nasso are the one's who hired Pellicano and Proctor. Proctor owed the mob $14K and was hired out for $10K - which probably just reduced his principle. I wonder how long he owed them the money and how much interest has accumulated.

Further searches indicate the list is indeed incomplete; however, I can only find a couple of titles to add. (The Ninja Dojo, Trail of Blood - 1979 and Pickpocket - 2000.) When I'm at home and on dial-up as opposed to at the office with a cable connection, searching is a slow process.

One thing in your previous post caught my attention. You said "I agree, Jet Li is fun to watch and would be a formidable opponent on the street...." I believe you just gave yourself away as the words 'formidable opponent' would be my last choice in describing the encounter. :)

The problem is that your forceful strength and speed training will not be with you when you have been away from your dojo a decade.

The reflexive moves of Aikido will, and I have used them in real life quite well. Not to the total and elaborate end moves on the ground, but sufficiently well to avoid punches and grabs and cast the attackers away from me onto their faces, and that has been enough. And that is without stretching, warming up, gettig focused, getting into a proper fighting stance etc.

If you mean by serious, where the motive was more than just let's see who's tougher or robbery? Where I believed they wanted to severely injure me or leave me for dead? Situations where I didn't have a weapon or any back-up? Me or them? Where I couldn't talk my way out of it.

Only two come to mind that I still think about from time to time.

In these two incidents there was more than pride or money on the line.

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